Emetic or simplistic?

Do you support imprisonment of old and sick people without investigation (under section 498a of IPC) ?

Please answer yes or no.

Radical feminists in India, want the law to remain the way it is. If we explain them politely, those hedonists will not understand. Even police and Judiciary shouts that 90% of the cases are false. Even children and minors are getting arrested without investigation based on just one line of false complaint by an adulterous daughter-in-law for money.

It is not surprising, Media fellows are brainwashed with liberal extremism and hence they are extremely intolerant and conservative about their liberal views.

Please, answer the issues we are tackling. Do you support legal abuse of elders ? If no, then what can you do about it ?

It is easy to talk about Tsunami and Imrana because that is fashionable. Then, who will clean the unfashionable shit in the society ?

BTW, our conference at Constitution Club in New Delhi '498a- A Family Killer' was covered by DDNEWS and Total TV. The guests included Madhu Kishwar, hope you know who she is.

If you want to debate with us, join yahoogroup saveindianfamily.

As you do not have any answers for the issues we raise, you are frustrated. We have concern for your situation.

We thank Sumanth for the concern. And we put it to you, dear reader. Does this sound to you like someone who is trying to obscure the question? Or are we just underinformed (which we'll happily admit to)?

34 comments:

Anonymous
said...

It's sad and interesting -- as if we all belong to separate, warring planets between which there's no hope of understanding or compassion. Only a deadly, obsessive, hatred on the part of some and complete noncomprehension on the part of others.

I would like to be sympathetic towards "Sumanth" but it isn't possible, because he seems convulsed with hatred. If only his message included something soft, something gentle, it would be possible to respect his fury. But in the lack of anything attractive in his message ... what can we say?

Nothing. I suspect that's why there's been a curious silence, Zig. There's no point responding to extreme hatred.

I like the way feminist transmogrified into hedonist and then into "adulterous daughter-in-law". I demand equal rights for adulterous and hedonist mother-in-laws, daughters, aunts and sisters as well! And why does everyone ignore the men...are they so unimportant that they can't even be demonised?

On a more sober note, can't they send us someone more calm and reasonable to debate with?

I worry about people and sites like this. They end up misleading and influencing whole communities of other people. Peter, I'm going to end up writing to them because there is a lot to be debated and some of us have to try and get them to stop. Or should we just ignore them and they will die natural deaths? Many valid issues, but such a narrow focus - so totally uninformed and a blinkered perspective - results in pages like "Say No to Feminism". And then there are those completely tangential pieces on Cannabilism.Certainly Emetic.There was this whole post on Bindaas Bol about Feminism incidentally which got huge and confused responses. Been meaning to have a full-fledged dialogue on this separately somehwere - where?

If such people are made to "disappear" from the face of the earth, am sure not too many people will hold me responsible na?i pray that 'sumanth' gets caught in a cross fire between radical feminisists and brain washed media.

Let's get one thing straight. Most people do not understand what Feminism is. While some of us were talking about legal and political rights, and equity, somebody walked in and stole feminism from right under our noses.

Feminism is about choices.

Fact of the matter remains that legal loopholes in India are all about taking advantages of somebody else's vulnerability. Fact also remains that for every 8 cases that rightly bring forth the absolute misery of women suffering from dowry harassment, there are two who are faking it, and asking for astronomical settlements. (Trust me on this, I have something like this going on in my family!)

It brings me to a crucial conclusion. Law is not about majorities. It is not about ensuring that the those in the majority get justice, but those who are languishing in that corner of minorities have some manner of seeking justice as well.

The problem is however when one juxtaposes a legal argument with a moral one.

But even more problematic is lip-service to the cause of feminism. Being a feminist without quite understanding what it is about. That is is not about a war, but about missed and yet-unseen opportunities. That it is about distribution, and not snatching. About roles and responsibilities, and not necessarily retro-blaming.

(My perspective anyway..)

I have serious issues when people start talking about *preserving* families however. Families are not fruits. They are a convenient form of arrangement. A way in which we organize important relationships. Families can be breeding grounds for discontent, rape, anger, inequality, or it could be something wonderful. And there is nothing Indian about any family anyway. Perhaps Sumanth refers to a very mainstream RSS-Type Hindu Baniya family that Advani and BJP honchos come from, and consider to be reflective of a larger trend.

But instead of dismissing Sumanth's stand, I am willing to engage in a dialogue. Because I don't think it makes sense to divide ourselves into frustrated and otherwise souls.

It is so easy to blame something that is miused and misunderstood. Feminism is one of them... Maybe.

You have now talked about what is known a Equity Feminism. Thats what we also work for. As someone in your family is going through it, you have some understanding of the pain and anguish of thousands. A Feminist named Christina Sommers wrote a book with exactly same phrase "Who Stole Feminism?"

Please understand that, regarding misuse of 498a, we did approach Feminists, Vimochana and Human Rights Organisations. The only thing they gave us is sympathy. Are we a bunch of beggers ? So, we started teaching feminists a beautiful lesson and soon they will stick to equity. In this country, humility is often misunderstood as cowardice. Feminism is very much political now with lot of funds and personal agendas involved. Real Women's activists are just microscopic. When gender feminists (also academic feminists) spew hate like politicians, we will also do the same to show that life is a mirror.

High Court judges have gone on record to say that 90% of Section 498a cases are false. Real Victims do not get justice where as unscrupulous misuse these laws. Thats a reality.

I and 1000 techies, NRIs and intellectuals do not want to look good. We want to tell another side (give a perspective) in a language that we choose.

We had a conference in New Delhi where our guest noted Women's activist Madhu Kishwar vehemently opposed misuse of 498a which undermines the very existence of the women's rights movement in India. Doordarshan covered it.

We are equity Feminists and we oppose Gender Feminists hijacking the movement in a big way in India.

BTW, we are not aligned in any way with BJP, RSS and Sangh Parivar and Religious organisations. So, that makes us even more lethal for feminism (I mean Gender Feminism).

To Zigzackly and others:

Please search in google on dowry laws 498a etc and you will know how big we are. We have pushed feminist sites down already.

So, we request you to save feminism from us. As you try to save feminism, you will refine it and make it less political. That will creat equity feminism in India.

Hope, it makes some sense in the Reductioniostic minds who believe in piecewise solutions of problems and end up creating much more problems. Is not that what happened in Afganistan ? Short term reductionistic approaches of US and West, is coming back to them.

Please wake up before its too late for Feminism. We will do our duty as an Opposition Party in this "Gender Parliament". Lets have fun in democratic tradition. At present Feminism is beyond questioning. It is dangerous to allow anything to exist in a fascist way.

It shows when you spew hatred, people want dialog. When you request politely, you get nothing but sympathy. We and our mothers certainly do not want sympathy.

We did try dialog with aidindia.org, indiatogether.org and countercurrents.org and even a hate mongering organisation like Amnesty International (We will expose its misdeeds in right time). We got nothing, not even lip service.

Now, when we have put a site with venom towards feminism, people want to talk. Why the hell, we do not talk to the meek ? When people take to guns, the "socially conscious" want dialog!!

When women were meek, they were tortured. Today, elders are meek, so they are getting tortured.

Why the hell we cover ourselves with blindfolds and wake up one fine day and shout "Imrana, Imrana" (as if she is an exception) only to get back to our normal insensitive self again.

We had successful Dialog with the editor of Manushi (women's rights magazine established in 1978). Manushi had published articles on Misuse of 498a way back in 1999 and it warned about a severe backlash against feminism. Five years have passed. Did any radical feminist wake up? Just read the statements of Indira Jaisingh, Flavia Agnes and Brinda Karat on the issue of 498a misuse and find how truthful they are. That will answer any questions about our assertion about hypocrisy inherent in Feminism.

Curly, the people and issues you attract. I love this, of course- And promise to do my best to not descend into base repartee... or at least promise to rise out of it soon enough.

First up- I do have issues with those who bring propoganda-heavy-breathing comments to personal blogs. I do, deeply do.

And then-

Who is this save indian family foundation? Who taught them grammar? Which city are they based in? Why don't they have a telephone number? Who is this Sumanth who speaks on "their" behalf, and where does he come from?

Someone... possibly Sumanth. I see him/her/it sitting staring at the comp screen, hungrily waiting for new comments so that in one fell swoop... but I digress. Someone, yes someone please tell me whether this is even an authentic organization.

And whether there are pages on the site that are supposed to give organization info that are NOT "under construction..."

[I love the three dots. Such existential breathlessness]

Show me pictures. Facts. Numbers.

Otherwise- even before I make fun of the dowry page with references to 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' [dear god]- I will rush to set up my own page.

It will be called Save the Narrow View Points of Lone Maniacs With Too Much Internet Time (SNVPLMWTMI)

I am a feminist, but I refuse to be drafted into the academic swirl of equity, equality, gender, or opportunist feminism. Ref to my previous comment, I think feminism is about choices. You have got feminism completely wrong AS WELL.

Your solution to the issue of counter-harassment is to take a moral stand on Indian (sic)Family Values. I would take it another way and push for legal advocacy, but make partners of women, not war with them.

I am definitely not comfortable with supporting anything that pretends to represent the Indian Family. For one thing, I don't believe that such a monolith even exists.

As for the book, 'Who stole Feminism?', it is an extremely contextual understanding of feminist wave post 90s in countries that have largely moved beyond Christian Law and Dogma, and sometimes seek to find direction. I find that book to be extremely irritating actually, because its entire argument is based on why Gender Feminism is wrong, but does not attempt to launch into a dialogue with feminists, but instead goes onto say that women are limited biologically anyway, and therefore equity as opposed to equality is important.

Again. Do not thank me. I was only urging others to look at shades of gray, and not agree with you.

Fine. I take back my thanks to you. I can understand your concerns which are quite genuine.

Please understand that the backlash is already in motion. Tomorrow (15th July), DD-1 is going to telecast our discussion on Misuse of 498a.

We will wait to see how many people you can convince to look at shades of gray. We know your chances of success.

Once, most of the feminists start thinking like you, we will change the contents of our website overnight into something very nice and grammatically correct. Seeing the comments of other people in this blog, I am sure, it will take a long time.

Dreamsnpencils:

You will find our phone numbers (and helpline numbers) in our website yourself. Please try to do what you can to stop us. We are 1000 in number and saveindianfamily is not the only site we have got. We work for registered NGOs. Please get to our yahoogroup saveindianfamily and you will find all about us.

Zigzackly:

Please accummulate an army of feminists fast as time is running out. People in west have already started tearing feminism down.

Having decided not to bang my head against any walls. Let me say this, DD1 casting anything is not proof of it being relevant or right. For instance I was once on DD (Both National and Metro if you will) as a 12 year old singing Christmas Carols, bleary eyed and with other dizzy 12 year olds.

The one thing you need to understand before you launch into your *anger-based* motion, is that anger simply doesn't work. You cannot make enemies in the public sphere. When you use strong language, people focus on your language and not the idea itself. For instance if I say Advani is an Idiot, the focus becomes the word *idiot* and nobody is interested in knowing the rational behind why I don't respect Advani. Perhaps a better way of saying it is to say I have a genuine problem with Advani's opinions.

Because of the language and approach you use, people will never both to understand what you are trying to say or what the *value* of your argument is. Your approach is aggressive and not integrated. I understand if someone has a concern about misuse of certain laws, but you cannot move against all feminists, because you loose important comrades, because feminists' core cause is justice.

But I suppose my current status as jobless gives me all the more time to discuss this stuff.Amen.

Reductionism has never succeeded in this world. Feminism will not succeed because it derives itself from reductionism. The gains achieved in one area will just get compensated by losses in several other areas.

Please wake up. With reductionism you can only create problems while trying to find solutions for a simple problem.

In a complex interconnected dynamical system like society, it is unscietific to look at problems in isolation. Feminism looks at problems in isolation, not in totality. "Conflict divorce" will lead to a massive increase in crime rate after 15 years.

We are not against divorce. We are against conflict divorce where the children and elders are made to pay a huge price. These divorces run for 4 to 5 years.

We do not want to convince insensitive academic people who are not going to be convinced in any way (politely or otherwise). Even if, people are convinced about feminist atrocities against even women and children, the maximum they can do is to offer sympathy.

So far as our aggressiveness is concerned, the feminist arguments are also equally aggressive and lack integrity. We are just showing the mirror image of what feminism says all along "Men had a very good time while women only suffered. So, hang a few innocent men, women and children, so that they will come to track."

Feminism did work moderately and also radically. How do you know that we do not have a moderate face as well when we interact with judges and social activists ? You have only seen our radical side.

Well, if feminism is all about choice, then why women do not marry down ? A woman can marry a guy who is less educated, earns less or unemployed, is shorter in height and is some 5 years younger. After all women in India will be living 5 to 7 years more than men (now it is 2.5 years). What does feminism has to say about this ? Why women are obsessed with marrying up ? May be they will blame male EGO for that. If yes, then where the choice has gone ?

Who is this IDIOT, this Sumanth??? And why are we all wasting time trying to make him understand anything??? Relax. One day he will die & take his ideas with him! As for his blog, we don't need to go & read it! Problem solved, simple!!!

Now, tell me, if I had not written the articles, would you have come across such people who talk in Maa-Behen langauge and claim themselves to be Feminists ?

A whole bunch of Male Chauvenists have made backdoor entry inside Feminism and you tell us to look at Core Values of Feminism. Sounds like Musaraff talking about Core values in Madrassas while breading Taliban.

Please bring, all these junk characters back to Core Values of Feminism and I will change my views immediately.

Whom should you change first ? People like me, who give a perspective or "people who swear at innocent Maa-Behen of others claiming that they are feminists"?

These prove my points. Feminists are irresponsible. Is not it responsibility of the Feminists to clean up the chauvenists who claim themselves to be feminists and who spread hatred in articles and in literature ?

Please assert that there is no feminist literature directed at hatred towards males.

Please assert that there is no hypocrisy in feminism.

Your feelings, concerns towards our articles are exactly the same feelings that many people get when they read feminist articles in literature, in newspapers and in websites of many NGOs. But, they remain silent because they do not want to look bad and get accused that "they are killing the brides for dowry".

If I shut my mouth now, someone else will open his/her mouth again. How many people can you convince ?

There are already 200 people in yahoogroup saveindianfamily, can you convince them all ? Every week, the membership increases by 10 people. See the mood in yahoogroup Misusedowryact.

You should focus your energies towards cleaning up feminism via your articles than trying to shut my mouth. By doing so, you will indeed do a great service to feminism. Please understand that it is very risky for you as you start telling feminists to behave. Give it a try. BTW, nobody likes dialog, especially when they are powerful after Beijing conference, being backed by UN, Amnesty International and handling millions of dollars of funds from Patriarchy.

You know, our next article is,"Feminism, Mistress of Patriarchy". The same feminists who shout against dowry in afternoon, attend extravagant dowry weddings in the evening.Please read this article called Thoughts on Activism. Please do not say, that you got irritated because there is no dialog.

You must have read "Animal Farm". Thats what happens to every revolution, however great the core values and core ideas are.

Manushi Article Says:---------------------Practise Before Preaching Too often activists themselves cannot implement what they preach. Take, for example, the anti-dowry campaigns in which activists demanded stricter anti-dowry laws to abolish the practice altogether because they saw it as very harmful to women in all its forms. We at Manushi started on the same note in the late 70s. I found it very distressing, however, that many of the activists would participate one day in anti-dowry demonstrations condemning those who give or take dowry, but would not themselves hesitate to participate in a dowry wedding the very next day. When I argued with them they offered excuses such as that they couldn't annoy or displease their family or friends. I was terribly distressed by this gap between what we preached and what we were practising, and thought this might be the real reason the anti-dowry movement was having no impact.Some of us at Manushi decided to try to implement our anti-dowry campaign in our own lives before we condemned others for taking dowry. We took a public vow that we would not attend any wedding where dowry was given or taken, even if it involved our close relations or friends. We hoped that others would also take this oath and help in curbing the dowry menace. In addition, we called for a boycott of such weddings by other activists, arguing that we ought to begin with implementing the reforms we advocated in our own lives. No more than half a dozen women responded. This list did not include any of the prominent women activists. However, I personally carried out my boycott vow meticulously for more than thirteen years, even at the cost of hurting dear friends and close relatives. The only totally dowryless wedding I was witness to during this period was that of my own brother. In most other cases, the woman to be married would come and argue with me heatedly, pointing out the foolishness of my stand given that they themselves wanted to take dowry. Why should they be forced to give up a dowry, they argued, when they knew their parents would not give them a share in the family estate? If I did not have a means of ensuring that daughters got their due share in parental property, what business did I have to prevent them from getting dowries? In their view, it would only serve their brothers interests, as they would get an even larger share of the inheritance.

Ok -Sumanth is NOT a techie. Merely delusional. You can't track ip addresses on and off blogspot - not unless you happen to own a large chunk of google. All those adulterous cannibalistic daughters-in-law have turned his brain into mush.Bananas anyone?

Techie hai re! Aur Yeda bhi hai! Or is that the same thing? To me it is. Must be an out of work techie! Bench kar diya hoga. Imagine, so much exposure, so much information at his fingertips and a mind narrower than his...Zig... why don't you delete all the posts this techie doofus has put up? Best way to silence him. What say?

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